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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860692">Tim</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed'>IAmWhelmed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Origami Birds [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Red Robin (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Batfam wants their baby bat back, Damian Wayne Feels, Damian Wayne is Missing, Damian Wayne-centric, Detective Tim Drake, Gen, Protective Siblings, Protective Tim Drake, Sibling Rivalry, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Tim Drake-centric, Worried Batfamily (DCU)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:22:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24860692</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In light of Damian's disappearance, Tim hates to admit just how much he misses the little demon brat.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tim Drake &amp; Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Origami Birds [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786054</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>221</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Tim</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p><p>He and Damian never got along, anybody with a pair of eyes could see that. Rather, anybody with a set of ears. He called Damian <em> Demon Spawn </em> for a reason, and it was an appropriate enough nickname that even Jason picked up on it. Damian scowled, quipped, scoffed, and on rare occasions <em> bit </em>, and dealing with him both on patrol and around the manor was a hassle.</p><p>But it was better than no Damian at all.</p><p>There was nobody to stare over his shoulder at his files anymore, or to scoff and suggest a more efficient solution, <em> Drake </em> . There was nobody to read silently next to, because Dick was usually training, Jason was never around, and Bruce was always busy. There were no more silent moments where he could turn just the smallest inch and see Damian’s newest art piece and feel, every once in a while, that their youngest had more good in him than anybody gave him credit for. He loathed to admit it, but he was starting to forget the sound of his voice, how he spoke like a man with the higher-pitched youth of a child, the way his small, round face scrunched when he scowled. He didn’t want to forget. He didn’t want to lose the one grasp he still had on their missing bird. Without Damian, the energy of the manor seemed to seep into the walls, waiting for him to return, leaving the air thick and heavy and <em> sickening </em>.</p><p>The twenty different living room spaces that already felt cold now carried the presence of a haunting shadow, a ghost that he could still hear complaining, that he could see out of the corner of his eye, even though nothing was there when he turned his head. The flowers and shrubs in the garden had lost their color, despite their opportunity to grow without the rush of a sword cutting straight through their bodies. The batcave was somehow filled to the brim with tension, like a fog that made it hard to move just one step.</p><p>The worst offender, though-- that was Damian’s room. That square, modest room that used to be locked and guarded by Damian himself was now the equivalent of an open exhibit, the kind they recreated to the smallest detail, but it still didn’t feel real. It felt like a dead, pale body stood in the center of the room and watched whoever was stupid enough to come traipsing into a room that didn’t belong to it anymore, not that anybody would say that. Because it was still Damian’s room, and the image of his dead eyes watching him, grimacing as his palms graced the wood of his door, it was cold, but it wasn’t unnerving. To feel like this was still wrong, to still feel like Damian was going to jump out of nowhere and throw a fit about him trespassing his usually-guarded chamber, it meant that he hadn’t left his head or the heart of this manor just yet.</p><p>His pencils and artbooks sat at his desk, untouched, but open; he’d been working on something. Not an ink pen in sight, meaning he hadn’t been satisfied with his product, yet. This was where Titus was most commonly found, laying on Damian’s bed, right where the memory of his body left curves in the mattress. Alfred the cat lazed nearby at the windowsill, and sometimes he’d still mewl as the sun came up, talking to a boy who wasn’t here anymore. As he pushed the door open, Titus raised his head in greeting, then laid back down with a low, slow whine.</p><p>Damian’s bed was meticulously made, so he hadn’t been in a hurry to leave the house that morning, and as he recalled, it was a school day. His school uniform was hung from his closet door, opposite the empty hanger that had presumably suspended his Robin uniform, but the school uniform was messy, not at all like Damian. The tie was limp and threatened to slip over the shoulder of the dress shirt, loose and uneven at the collar. Unlike in the morning, he’d been in a hurry to rid himself of Damian Wayne, to become Robin for the night. For not the first time, he wondered if something had happened at school, something that warranted his reckless behavior that night. Maybe it played into his disappearance; hell, he even wondered if this mystery occurrence was why Damian was actively hiding from them, now.</p><p>No, that was wishful thinking. He was probably hiding for the same reason any Robin ran away from Batman. And he’d been over these clues a million times over, already.</p><p>He’d found himself wandering between the four walls with nowhere to go, more than once, and he knew every inch of that empty bedroom like he knew his staff. He’d combed it over, hoping to find evidence, proof that Damian had planned this. If he could just prove that Damian had a plan, he could reverse engineer it, find the bird tracks he might not have seen otherwise. If there was a plan, there was always a trail. But there’d been nothing. As far as he or Bruce (or any of the other vigilantes in Gotham) could tell, there’d <em> been </em> no plan. What happened that night had been an accident, a purely instinctual reaction on Robin’s part, a failure to respond on theirs. And now he was gone. He was out there, somewhere, because Robin wasn’t dead, not again, and Damian Wayne sure wasn’t, either. Jason was convinced he was, that Bruce had failed another of his birds, but Tim knew better. Dick knew better. Bruce knew better. That fall shouldn’t have killed Damian-- might have hurt, might have broken a bone or two and <em> hurt like hell </em>, but it wouldn’t have killed him. Steph and Oracle agreed with him, said that maybe their youngest was wandering around with some head trauma. It wouldn’t have been the first time a member of the batfamily had fallen victim to amnesia. But nevertheless, the general consensus was that Damian was alive, they just had to find him.</p><p>Tim plopped down on Damian’s bed and took a deep breath. Titus raised his head to look at him for a moment, then huffed and nuzzled into the palm he offered. “You’re missing your buddy a lot, aren’t ya?” He tried to smile. “I’ll let you in on a little secret… I am, too.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope to GOD I got Tim's characterization right. He's for sure one I struggle with. I tried to zero in on his deductive skills for this piece because, while I don't know all that much about him, I still adore his complex relationship with Damian &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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